


Cupid is Painted Blind

by april_rainer (tom_bedlam)



Category: Julian Kestrel - Kate Ross
Genre: Backstory, F/M, one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5483360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tom_bedlam/pseuds/april_rainer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian Kestrel is hailed by an old friend in London, and finds himself on the Cornish coast for a house party.  Set before dead bodies started turning up in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cupid is Painted Blind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Delancey654](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delancey654/gifts).



Freddy was cursing the mud, his bootmaker, and his battleaxe of a maternal aunt in equal measure when he caught sight of a familiar set of shoulders on the street ahead of him. "Kestrel!" he called out. "I say, Kestrel!"

The man turned at his voice, and for a hideous moment, Freddy thought he's been shouting at a stranger. The coat had none of the shabby-genteel about it, and the man moved with a casual grace. But the face, like the slight shoulders in their dark coat, was recognizable as the Mr. Kestrel of his brief but fraught journey to France.

“It’s Freddy Armfelt,” Freddy added with some diffidence. He felt, without being able to fully articulate it, that Julian had all the advantage now. As callow youths, Kestrel had had the brains between them, but Freddy had always had the funds and address that a younger Kestrel had lacked. But now, watching Kestrel turn, Freddy could see that he had gained style and something in the way of credit in the years since they’d met. “I dare say you don’t recall — we met on the Calais road some years ago —“ Freddy stuttered out. Kestrel was wearing his Continental polish like a second coat, and it made him demmed hard to treat like the friend he had been.

But Kestrel smiled as Freddy stepped into the glow of the street lamps, suddenly looking his proper age again. “Freddy! How do you do? Did your mother’s chaise-lounge make it safely across the Channel in all?”

Freddy laughed. “It did. Mother was pleased with me for a full week before it was brought to her attention that Mrs. Chevely had commissioned a worktable with the same covering, so of course it had to be replaced. What with Mother’s instructions, and the French roads, and all the locals yammering on in that heathenish lingo, I would almost wish I had never been to Paris.”

“But you had a fine time once we got you to the hotel, you know,” Kestrel said with grin that was unchanged from their not-so-distant boyhood. “In spite of the lingo.”

Freddy returned the grin. Unlike Kestrel, it made look hopelessly foolish, but being a young man not over-blessed wits, he had never been bothered by this fact. “I say, Kestrel, how long have you been London? I thought you were fixed in the Continent.”

“I came from Italy,” Kestrel said with a careless shrug. “After the fashions, I felt the need to get my coat cut by an Englishmen.”

“Lord, I should say so,” Freddy replied, much struck by this point of view. “I never saw a good coat from first to last in Paris, and Italy must be worst. I say, won’t you with me to Watier’s? I’m meeting Tony Blakeney — the best of good fellows — and a crowd of his friends there tonight. There should be some good play, and I hear Philips has a bet on his valet’s secret to the shine of his Hessians.” Freddy was brought back to himself enough to notice that Kestrel’s costume was not that of a young headed to his own rooms, and added hastily, “But perhaps you have another engagement — another evening would do as well, I’m sure.”

Kestrel smiled. “I did promise to pass the time with some old acquaintances, but perhaps I could call on you tomorrow. What’s your direction?”

Freddy extracted his card and passed it to Kestrel, who returned the favour. Freddy saw that Kestrel was in lodging, not expensive, but thoroughly genteel, in Half-Moon Street. The young men bowed to each other, and passed on to their appointments.

——————

Kestrel called on Freddy at the quite civilized hour of 2PM the following day, only to find another visitor before him. Due to an oversight on Freddy’s part that he would never be able to fully explain, he forgot to tell his man that he was not to be disturbed, so Kestrel found himself shown, all unknowning, into a tete-a-tete between Freddy and his mother, Lady Armfelt. To those acquainted with the family, it was quite a mystery how such a fine, intelligent woman as Lady Armfelt could have brought such a blockhead as Freddy into the world. The only thing he had inherited from his mother, besides her fine green eyes and height, was an impeccable eye for color and cut. While Lady Armfelt was certainly glad, unlike many of her friends, Freddy would never dream of embarrassing her by appearing with a loosely knotted kerchief in place of a neatly tied cravat, she could never spend more than an hour with her offspring before her patience with his slower wits began to wear.

“— next weekend!” Lady Armfelt was saying as the butler ushered Kestrel into the room. “Who is this?” Lady Armfelt snapped, startled out of her rant, and displeased by it.

“Julian Kestrel, at your service,” Kestrel replied, promptly. He bowed gracefully over Lady Armfelt’s hand, and her eyes tracked the movement was mild aesthetic appreciation.

“Mr. Kestrel’s just back from the Continent,” Freddy explained, seeming grateful for the change of subject. “He was kind enough to put me in the way of things over in Paris that time, and I thought I might return some of the favour here in London.”

“Hmm,” said Lady Armfelt. “Invite him. Or find someone better, but I absolutely rely on you to find a replacement.” With that ultimatum, Lady Armfelt swept out.

Kestrel turned an inquiring eyebrow on his nominal host. Freddy sank shakily into the couch, and commanded, “Brandy” to the lingering butler.

Fortified with a stiff drink, Freddy became expansive. “It’s m’sister, you see. Mama’s throwing a house party for her to meet people (Sophy’s terrible shy, and won’t be a hit during the Season if she knows absolutely no one), and Monty went out of town with no warning at the last minute, and Mama didn’t know until today. How was I to know no one had told her? It isn’t my fault Monty ran off to Bath and won’t be back until the Seasons.”

“Indeed, I would have expected your mother to know well before you did,” Kestrel replied. Even on such short acquaintance, he was quick to read society, and generally accurate in his judgements.

“Well, it’s really that I heard at Tattersall’s that Monty was chasing an ugly heiress to Bath, but I couldn’t very well say that to Mama, now could I?”

“No, indeed.”

“So now she says that I need to find a replacement, but that Reynolds won’t do, not Philips or Hartley, and Blakeney’s already invited so he won’t fix her numbers at all. Could you be a good sport and come along? It will be frightfully dull, I expect, but the coast is fine for fishing at least, and Cornwall’s a good deal pleasanter in the summer than London.”

“Indeed, it would be my great pleasure to make the acquaintance of your sister,” Kestrel assured Freddy easily, thinking more of his draining bank account. London living was expensive.

——————

The party was small — some young men of Freddy’s set, some friends of Lady Armfelt with daughters or sons who might be good for Sophia to get to know — an generally unknown to Julian. Freddy’s set, full of easy camaraderie, welcomed him without thought on the recommendation of having helped Freddy out some years before. Lady Armfelt was cool but cordial to him, and drew him out to speak French with her and Lady Blakeney, who was French herself. Lord Armfelt took no more notice of Kestrel than he did of any of the other lads, and the young ladies seemed much taken up with each other and with Blakeney (and the wealth he would some day inherit).

The gentlemen amused themselves with riding and shooting, until the weather chased them inside, where they attended politely to the young ladies’ water colours (none inspired), conversation (shy and rather insipid), and musical performance. It was this last that drove Kestrel to the billiards room alone. A sensitive musician himself, Kestrel could never bear to listen to round after round of poorly chosen and roughly executed Bach and Mozart with intense frustration.

It was in this solitary retreat that a young lady, quite unknown to him, burst into the room, shouting in French. She swung around, caught sight of Kestrel, and stopped with a jolt. She was perhaps 19 or 20, and tall, but she had none of the polish of the girls, some several years younger, playing scales in the music room. “Pardonez-moi,” Kestrel said, slipping easily into the French he had spoken almost exclusively for five three years. “I don’t believe I have had the pleasure, Mademoiselle.”

“No,” she said shortly in heavily accented English. “Who are you?”

“Julian Kestrel, Mademoiselle, at your service,” he replied politely in the same language.

“No you are not. No one ever really is at one’s service and it is a great piece of nonsense to be saying such a thing when it is not in the least true.”

“Indeed, Mademoiselle, you have given me no commands. How can you be so sure that I am not your servant in all things?”

The young lady blinked at him for a few surprised seconds, then snapped, “Go away.”

Regretfully, Julian set his cue aside, and with a bow to the young lady, slipped out of the room. The music room had settled into whist and speculation when he slipped back in. Freddy greeted him gratefully, claiming Kestrel had owed him a game of billiards before steering him forcibly back to the door. “I should be delighted to join you,” Julian murmured, allowing himself to be dragged, “But I have just been firmly ordered from the billiards room by a lovely French girl. Who was she?”

“You’ll want to see the new litter,” Freddy said, loud enough to be overheard, escaping the parlour for the kennels. The two young men eyed the squalling pups with assumed admiration from a distance that kept the mirror-like shine to their Hessians. “So you met Thérèse. Did she really fly at you?”

“She did - and she didn’t introduce herself, but unless your family makes a habit of hiding angry French women, I suppose that is who I must have met. Who is she?”

“Do you know, I’m not exactly sure?” Freddy said disingenuously. “Her father was some sort of aristo or other who saved my Uncle’s life during the Peninsular Wars, so he took in Thérèse when the old man died.”

“She is not yet out I take it?” Kestrel asked, surprised. She had seemed rather older than Sophia, and should be rights be out before Freddy’s sister.

“No,” said Freddy. “I don’t know for sure that Uncle means to bring her out at all. It’s always been rather understood that she and my cousin Charles would make a match of it.”

“Charles Clare?” Kestrel asked, trying and failing to imagine that careless and weak-chinned young buck being in any way suited to the beautiful fury he had met less than hour previously.

“Yes. He’d no catch, but Thérèse hasn’t a penny of her own, so it’s a fair enough match in its own way, I suppose.”

“Hmm,” said Kestrel and let the subject drop.

——————

Kestrel did not have the opportunity to pursue his acquaintance with Mademoiselle Thérèse for several days, until he came upon her, quite by chance, on a walk by the ocean. He had woken earlier than was his wont, and found the air smelled too much of Italy for comfort. Although he was glad to be home in England, and did not regret leaving Lake Como in truth, Julian still found himself waking in the early mornings some days, expecting to hear Meastro Donati call him, and he still wondered if he had made the wrong choice abandoning his pursuit of music. It would not due to be playing the piano in Freddy’s family home — England was a place gentlemen did not pursue music, after all. Wasn’t that why he had left in the first place? And so his restless feet took him to the high cliffs behind the house overlooking the Cornish coastline, and just beyond the edge of sight, Brittany.

Mademoiselle Thérèse was seated on a large flat stone at the hight point in the cliff path. The wind was wildly tumbling her dark curls, and the dramatic scene set off her dashing prettiness far more effectively than the prim billiards room. Kestrel was struck more than ever by her loveliness, and how unsuited a man like Charles Clare.

“Mademoiselle,” he murmured, wondering if he were about to summarily dismissed again.

But the cliffs and ocean seemed have put Mademoiselle in mellower mood, for she replied, although without taking he eyes off the roiling Channel, “This used to be a haven for smugglers, did you know? Aristos and French luxuries came into these beaches and all sorts of things were snuck back to France — money and spies and food. Less than a decade ago, this cliff would have been crawling with excisemen. There would be no challenge in smuggling anything now, Monsieur Kestrel.”

“We have peace Bourbon France,” Kestrel observed.

Mademoiselle Thérèse snorted. “Bourbon France. What have the Bourbons ever done for anyone? Besides kill anyone with new ideas?”

“Revolution and reaction do seem to be equally bloody businesses,” Julian found himself agreeing, thinking of the war-torn Italian countryside he had travelled through to reach France.

Mademoiselle Thérèse turned, finally, to glare at him. “Revolution in not the same thing is a horror such as the White Terror. At least the excesses of revolution are done in the name liberty and equality. This is oppression in the name stupidity and inequality.”

Kestrel bowed slightly, unable to disagree — he was all too familiar with the horrors of the reactionary government in France and the innocent men it might choose to pursue.

Mademoiselle Thérèse turned back to her contemplation of grey Channel. “You do not disagree with me. Monsieur Clare and Madame Armfelt say I am ungrateful and dangerous,” she observed. “Are you perhaps French?”

“No, indeed!” Kestrel laughed. “I have spend some few years in France, it is true, but I assure you I am as English as Freddy.”

“Sacre bleu! No one is as English as Freddy,” Mademoiselle Thérèse said. Kestrel tried to tell himself to be less please with having made her laugh but it was an involuntary reaction. When her sparkling eyes caught his briefly, he knew there was no hope for it — he would sell his soul, and a good many more practical considerations, for the smile in those melting eyes.

“That is true,” Kestrel agreed. “Have you heard how I met Freddy?”

“You met at a house party, as assembly, some such,” Mademoiselle Thérèse said, shrugging back to the view.

“No, indeed,” Kestrel said, mock offended. “I saved his life, I assure you. From vicious cutthroats, to hear him tell it. It was perhaps 10 miles from Calais on the Paris road. Freddy was in France for the first time, and trying to get to Paris on a commission from his mother. The carriage he hired had lost a wheel and there he was standing there in the middle of the road baffled and frustrated in his efforts to get the French villagers to understand that he wished to hire wagon to get his luggage to the next posting house. It was a lowering sight, Mademoiselle, to see an exquisite like Freddy standing in the muddy road, ejaculating, ‘By Jove!’ and ‘I say!’ as he tried to speak French. I think the whole village turned out to watch the spectacle, and not one provided him with any assistance until I came along and was able to translate.”

Mademoiselle Thérèse snorted. “Freddy is useless. I thought when you said you rescued him, perhaps you had fought with swords.”

“There is little opportunity for sword-fighting these days, Mademoiselle. Most men prefer pistols?”

“But you know how?”

“I have studied a little fencing, yes. Do you desire a duel with swords in your honor, Mademoiselle?” Julian realized that if she said yes, he would have to find someone to fence with in her honor. There was nothing else that could be done but to live up to the sparkle in those eyes.

“No.” Kestrel felt himself stiffen at the sheer scorn in the single word. “I wish to fight with swords myself. And pistols.”

Abruptly, she stood up. “I am going in. You should continue your walk. Monsieur Clare will not like I have been talking to you.”

——————

When Kestrel tried to ask after Mademoiselle Thérèse the next day, Lady Armfelt gave him a freezing look that made Julian feel younger than he had in years.

——————

The only way Kestrel was able to meet Mademoiselle Thérèse was by the merest chance. He woke, for no reason he could immediately identify, two days later, at the dark of the moon. His room overlooked the cliff road, and he was gazing absently out at the night when he saw some sort of flash. Since he was unable to sleep anyway, he slipped out onto the cliffs to investigate.

At the back gate, he ran straight into a dark cloaked figure. “You!” the figure cried, and he recognized the voice even when he was unable to see the face.

“Mademoiselle!” For a moment he couldn’t imagine what she was doing. And then he thought their conversation two days before, arguing French politics while she refused to look away from the Channel. “You are smuggling yourself out — you talked to me the other day only because you were waiting for a signal.”

“Oui.” A single pale hand reached out, and caught imploringly at his coat sleeve. “Monsieur, you will not give me away? I must go. My friends in France will look after me. If you call out now, I will never be free again. I will marry that toad of man, Clare, and be caught forever in being a horrid English wife.”

Kestrel caught the hand and pressed it. “Clare is a toad, but not all Englishmen are terrible.”

The dark figure shrugged. “All English men I have met are.” There was a short pause. “Except perhaps you. But if I stay, I will have no choices. I am not my dear Sophie, promised a season and a good match. I will not meet other men, and I will be forced to marry that toad in the end.”

“It is intolerable that you are forced into this position,” Kestrel said, uselessly. “But going to France — what will you do?”

“I am not friendless in France,” Mademoiselle Thérèse said. “My friends have been writing me these past two years. The Clares, they think I was at convent school in France.” She snorted. “There haven’t been convent schools in France since they were children. My Papa didn’t interfere with the friends I had. They are helping me get home, and I will help them, too. We will make a France that is as it should be, Monsieur Kestrel. A France where a girl’s future is her own responsibility, not her father’s or her guardian’s.”

Kestrel reluctantly released her hand, but before doing so, pressed a kiss to the knuckles. “As it should be, Mademoiselle. I would offer you what freedom I could give you — but I suppose you are already taking that, and much more. It has been my pleasure to make you acquaintance, however brief.”

The cloaked figure paused, then Thérèse leaned forward, and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. “When we have made France perfect, Monsieur Kestrel, come and find me. Perhaps you English can learn something from us.” And the cloaked figure was gone.

——————

Kestrel was one of the first to be aware of the Thérèse’s disappearance because he was awaken from a sound sleep by Mr. Clare’s distressed pounding at his door. “Good gracious, sir, do you know what the hour is?” he demanded on answering his door to find a distraught Mr. Clare and Lady Armfelt. “My lady, I beg your pardon for my disarray.”

“No,” Mr. Clare murmured, sinking to a chair across the hall. “No, I had hoped she had merely eloped.”

“What?” Kestrel asked, still not fully awake or cognizant.

“Thérèse has left us. Though her note said she was returning to France, we had hoped for a more natural development,” Lady Armfelt explained, and there was something in her eyes that made Kestrel feel that he could be seen through. He would thrown caution to the winds and eloped with Thérèse last night if she had had the slightest inclination for it.

He couldn’t help the slight flush to his cheek, but he was able to say calmly, “While Mademoiselle has been very kind to talk with me over the course of my visit, I am afraid to you have quite mistaken our friendship. I was not privy to her plan or ambitions, but I am most sorry I was not able to wish her well.”

Lady Armfelt’s look said that she doubted that that was all he felt, but she and her brother departed without comment.

Julian took himself to his window, looking out over the cliff road and wondering at himself. After Italy, he had thought he was cured of passionate emotions, but even in chill and dreary England, it seemed his heart could be touched. He moved to the mirror, absently fixing his hair. The disheveled mess not in the least appropriate to a proper English dandy. And English dandy was the role he was to play with all his heart and soul until he could truly care more for his jacket than a pretty girl’s flashing eyes.


End file.
